Thursday, July 21, 2011

As I posted earlier, I'm working up Spirit of the Century adventure to have in my back pocket in case I get to run an after hours game at this year's Gen Con. As before, I'm working out some of my thoughts on Google Plus and then refining them a bit for a blog post. Sorry if you're following me in both places.

The first character that I'd like to flesh out is Mark Twain. In Time Heals All Wounds, the Mark Twain character is a younger version than the white haired old man that most people hold in their minds. This will be a younger version of Twain, who's in his early to mid thirties and has been accidentally sucked through time, over ten years after his death, into the Spirit of the Century universe of the 1920s.

I'm looking for the Twain in this picture. It was taken a couple of years after his hard drinking and hard fighting newspaper days out West. He's a tough and has traveled the world by this point. He's been to the Mediterranean and traveled in countries like Egypt. Twain is also married giving him a reason to want to get back home.

To get some idea of Twain's toughness, check out this second photo, taken years later. You can still see the physical toughness of the rive boat captain and brawling newspaper man even later in life.

While I only need ten aspects, I hope to make a big list that I can then just cherry pick when making up his character..

Some aspects that I've thought of so far:

Hard drinkin', hard fightin'

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

Man of the world.

Never waste an opportunity to display my wit.

Accidental time traveler

I've had some really great suggestions from my Google PlusGaming circle.

James Desborough, aka Grim Jim, proprietor of Postmortem Studios, suggested these fantastic ideas. These are amazing FATE aspects. I have no further words. Enjoy!

Hmm. I don't know Twain's stuff well enough to match these up to quotes, but the attributes I'd want to capture include:

Resourcefulness

Rapier Wit

Way with Words

Keen Eye

Another Google Plus user, Mark Delsing, added this great one from Twain's own words:

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Feel free to post your own ideas in the comments.

** Storied Adventures seems to be obsessed with Spirit of the Century at the moment, but it's a bit broader than that. It is usually a board and table top gaming blog that is written by a guy who loves board games and is returning to RPGs after a 20 year absence. I am attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)

About Me

My name is Jim. I used to play all kinds of games when I was a kid. Having started by just making up stories for my friends with little more than a piece of graph paper as inspiration, I played a wide variety of games for the rest of my childhood. And then I quit playing for over 20 years. Now I'm back and this is a chronicle of that journey.